


Blessed Art Thou Among Women

by cptsdcarlosdevil



Category: Descendants (2015)
Genre: Child Abuse, Drabble, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Parent/Child Incest, Physical Abuse, Religious Guilt, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Roman Catholicism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7318609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptsdcarlosdevil/pseuds/cptsdcarlosdevil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drabble series about the horrifying fact that, in Descendants canon, Frollo had a child. Please mind the warnings: this fic is fairly dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blessed Art Thou Among Women

I. Faith

Claudine Frollo is a whore, and the daughter of a whore, and blood will out.

She knows little about her mother: a temptress who led her father to sin in a moment of weakness. Her father, out of his compassion, raised her. She must be grateful. If he had not, she would have been taught evil by an unbeliever. Now, with the help of God’s grace, she may yet be saved.

She knows that the Holy Church cannot be in error, and quashes the doubts when she thinks them. Still they gnaw: could an unbeliever really be worse than this?

II. Hope

God works all things to the good of those who believe in Him. His grace is abundant and all who say His name will be saved. This Claudine knows. 

And yet her witch blood, her temptress blood, draws her to sin. She sleeps too late; she takes one too many bites of dessert; her voice is not joyous when she obeys. Her father punishes her calmly, without rancor. Strike the child with the rod and rescue their soul from Hell.

She despairs. She knows despair is a worse sin than any sin that causes it. She despairs about her despair.

III. Love of God

Claudine prays alone in the bell tower where her father will not hear.

“Why did you make me like this?” she asks. “Why did you make me weak and licentious, rather than pure like my father? Why do I take so much after my mother? Why do you make so many rules, none of which I can keep? I try and my father has beaten me until I am scarred but nothing has come of it. You said you would give all believers grace. Then give it!”

Her words are quiet. She can barely hear them herself. “I hate you.”

IV. Love of Neighbor

Her father was exiled here because of his goodness: “blessed are you when they shall revile you and persecute you and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake.” All others on the Island are evil, true villains, the enemies of any righteous man. One must love one’s enemies, and offer them stern reproof to help them back to the way of righteousness.

Claudine does not reprove them anymore. She has learned her lesson. 

Still they beat her. She turns the other cheek. It does not hurt as much as her father’s beatings hurt. Inside, she hates. 

V. Obedience

Her father commands three hours of prayer. 

Last week, he sent her to the barge. She found a book and hid it carefully under a floorboard. After an hour of distracted prayer, she pries up the floorboard and opens the book.

She has never read a book other than devotional texts before. Even the Bible her father protects her from; she might misinterpret it and fall into sin. This book is about a prince, and a dragon, and a cruel spell; they live happily ever after.

She reads it whenever she can until the book falls apart. She never confesses.

VI. Piety

Claudine and her father celebrate Mass once daily. The Eucharist is, she knows, the most sure protection against her sinful nature. 

Kneeling during Mass, Claudine listens. If she tunes out her father’s droning Latin without getting too distracted to give the right responses, she can hear scraps of conversation from students changing classes. She treasures each complaint about the Weird Science test and speculation about who’s taking whom to prom. She is thirsty for it, as if it were clean water or the word of the Lord.

No one is lonely in God, but it makes her feel less alone.

VII. Humility

Sometimes when she is being beaten or scolded or called names, or every muscle aches after a day of work and she has hours yet of study and prayer, or she must change for the fourth time today, Claudine thinks: I do not deserve to be treated this way. You would not treat a dog the way I am treated. I do not deserve this.

The thought terrifies her. Self-will, pride, she knows are the greatest sins, the sins that caused Lucifer himself to fall from Heaven. She must bear up patiently under her cross. The only alternative is perdition. 

VIII. Industry

Claudine has been scrubbing the bell tower for hours. It is only half-clean. She was told to finish cleaning by the time her father comes home in the evening. The sun is setting. 

She puts the rag down and pulls herself up so she’s sitting in the window. The sun turns the sky red as the Sacred Heart. It is beautiful. She whispers the only words she knows to say: “my soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

Her hands are red and raw; a crack in the skin has started to bleed. She feels joy.

IX. Truthfulness

Each night, Claudine Frollo wishes her father good night.

He takes an interest in the course of her day. He asks, of course, about her sins, because he is a good father. But he cares about her studies and her prayers too, and even her wishes, as long as she doesn’t ask for anything too large or too sinful. She keeps her desires small and is praised for her childlikeness.

Each night, he kisses her forehead, and her skin crawls. “I love you, Claudine,” he says. 

“I love you, Father,” she responds. The words taste like ashes in her mouth. 

X. Modesty

Claudine’s body looks like her mother’s: the same sensuous curves and nubile softness. Her father reprimands her for causing lust. It is deliberate, he says. She is a whore who delights in the stares of men.

She does not mean to. She does not have to mean to when it is in her blood. 

Her wardrobe grows smaller and smaller. She often must choose between uncleanliness and immodesty. Either way she is beaten. 

Sometimes, Claudine catches her father staring at her in a way that makes her stomach sick. It’s helpful. She knows when to change to avoid being hit.

XI. Chastity

Claudine looks at a boy, not even out of attraction, just because it was where her eyes happened to land, and her father rages.

She is unchaste, whorish, a slut. She sneaks out of the house to get used in dirty back alleys by strange men like the prostitute she is. She takes men in her vagina, in her mouth, in orifices she didn’t even know were used that way. Why had he even bothered to teach her goodness? She is-- the insult worse than any in their house-- just like her mother. 

She stops leaving the house. It’s easier.

XII. Cheerfulness

According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, thy comforts have given joy to my soul. Claudine supposed that her soul must be joyous enough. No other part of her was. And she certainly had enough sorrows. 

His yoke was easy, she knew, and his burden was light. Why, then, is she so burdened? Her father does not find it hard to be virtuous. He was not tainted, as she was. Blood will out.

Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. This Claudine knows is the truth.

XIII. Resignation

Some of the children of the villains leave for Auradon and do not return. Claudine shouldn’t wish to go to Auradon. It is as full of sin as the Isles of the Lost, and more tempting, for they see themselves as good. For a girl like herself, who is evil and who leads others to evil, the safest place is with her father, who sometimes speculates that he is the last righteous man left alive. That’s the only place she’ll be saved.

No one ever comes for her.

She stares out over the sea, and turns, and rings the bells.


End file.
